1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to task schedulers and more particularly to a computer-implemented system for flexibly scheduling tasks and allocating resources in manufacturing operations and the like.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Conventional shop-floor control systems can be classified as pull, dispatched, or advance scheduled. A pull system entails an operation taking place only when there is a demand for its output. It is constrained by the capacity of its output buffer. When this buffer is full, it cannot produce more until someone consumes something from it.
A dispatch system entails an operation executing as long as there is work in its input buffer. When there are multiple jobs available, it selects among them on the basis of a dispatch rule.
In an advance scheduled system, a job is either unscheduled or assigned to a specific point in time. Once a job is scheduled, its location in time is fixed, and the time period it occupies is unavailable for other jobs unless the first job is rescheduled. Optimization of a schedule typically requires reconsidering which job runs when, and thus results in a great deal of backtracking.